Nail feeding mechanism



June 19, 1956 H. J. STONE 2,750,591

NAIL FEEDING MECHANISM Filed May 19. 1953 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 4 lea @2252 fizz/24% hmJZiw LOW, M

June 19, 1956 H. J. STONE, 2,750,591

NAIL FEEDING MECHANISM Filed May 19. 1953 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 I] AZ United States Patent NAIL FEEDING MECHANISM Herman J. Stone, Brockton, Mass, assignor to The Independent Nail and Packing Company Inc., Bridgewater, Mass, a corporation of Massachusetts Application May 19, 1953, Serial No. 355,897

3 Claims. (Cl. 1=6) This invention relates to a portable mechanism includmg a magazine for holding a supply of nails such as are commonly used for laying hard-wood flooring and for feeding the nails one by one from the magazine in'to alignment with an elongated driving implement which can then be struck by a carpenters hammer to drive the nail home. In general, the mechanism resembles a mechanism illustrated and described in the application of Jens Thornton for United States Letters Patent Serial No. 136,193, filed December 31, 1949, pursuant to which application Patent No. 2,660,727 was issued December 1, 1953. The present invention relates to improvements in such a mechanism which make it simpler, more durable, and less expensive to manufacture.

For a more complete understanding of the invention reference may be had to the following description thereof and to the drawings, of Which Figure 1 is a side elevation of a mechanism embodying the invention in position for use, a portion being broken away to show in section;

Figure 2 is a fragmentary detail of the mechanism shown in Figure I, viewed from the opposite side;

Figure 3 is a plan view of the mechanism, partly in section, viewed as indicated by the line 3-3 of Figure 1;

Figure 3a is a fragmentary perspective view of a guide member;

Figure 4 is an exploded view of the picker device to picking individual nails from the magazine;

Figure 5 is a sectional view similar to Figure l, but showing the parts in a different position of operation;

Figure 6 is a section on the line 66 of Figure 1;

Figure 7 is a section on the line 77 of Figure 5;

Figure 8 is a section on the line 88 of Figure 1; and

Figure 9 is a section on the line 9-9 of Figure 5.

The mechanism has a tubular barrel 10 which is held at an angle of about 45 to the floor when the mechanism 4 is in use. Slidably telescoping into the lower end of the barrel 10 is an inner cylinder 12 which is tubular and which has an opening 14 near its lower end to receive nails discharged one by one from above. The bore of the inner cylinder 12 is reduced as at 16 near its lower end to a diameter slightly greater than that of a nail head so as to guide a nail therein when it is being driven. The barrel 10 has a tubular plug 18 at its upper end. Slidably fitted in the bore of the plug 18 is a driver rod 20 which has an enlarged head 22 and which extends down through the barrel and into the inner cylinder 12. The driver rod has a section 24 between its ends which is slidably fitted in the bore of the inner cylinder 12. The lower end portion 26 of the driver rod is of reduced diameter to fit slidably in the reduced bore 16 of the inner cylinder, the extension 26 being a driving pin which engages the head of a nail in the bore 16. Attached to the lower end of the inner cylinder 12 is a shoe 30 which is loosely secured to the inner cylinder by a pin or rivet 32 which passes through the shoe and engages in a circumferential groove 34 in the lower portion of the inner cylinder. This shoe has a toe 36 which ice is adapted to engage the edge of a matched floor board 40 wh1ch is being laid so that by pushing against the mechamsm, the operator can conveniently push the board 40 tightly against the previously laid board 42 and can hold the board 40 in such position while the nail is being driven. The shoe 30 is designed so that when the mechanism is held as shown in Figures 1 and 5, the bore 16 of the inner cylinder will be aligned with the angle between the tongue of the board and the edge surface above the tongue. It is at this angle that the nail is supposed to enter the board.

The barrel 10 has an elongated opening or slot 44 along its uppermost side. On either side of this slot a pair of ears 46 project upward, these ears being preferably integral with the barrel. Secured between these ears is a block or body member 48 which extends upward at right angles to the axis of the barrel 10. This block is hollow and a side thereof is open toward the lower end of the mechanism. Secured to and rising from the interior of the block is a raceway 50 which is in the form of a tube having a slot 52 extending lengthwise thereof and aligned with the open side of the block. This slot is wide enough to accommodate the shanks of nails but not the heads of the nails so that if the nails are introduced into the top of the raceway with their heads inside and their shanks projecting out through the slot they will be retained one above the other by the raceway. Within the block '48 is a nail picking mechanism by which individual nails in the raceway are picked ofi one by one and discharged into the opening 14 in the inner cylinder 12. The nail picking device comprises a cylindrical member '54, the upper portion of which fits in the reduced lower portion 56 of the raceway 50. The cylinder 54 is hollow from the toppart way to the bottom. In the side wall of the cylinder is a vertical slot 58 the lower part of which is offset from the upper part 60 :so as to form a bayonet slot the shape of which results in a nose 62 which projects nearly across the lower part 58 of the slot. The member 54 is adapted to be oscilla-ted back and forth about its axis through a sufii-cient angle to bring the lower portion 58 and the upper portion 60 of the bayonet slot alternately in vertical alignment with the slot 52 of the raceway 50. When the upper portion 60 of the bayonet slot is in alignment with the slot 52 the vertical column of nails projecting through the slot 52 is supported by the shoulder 64 at the bottom of the upper portion 60 of the bayonet slot. The shank of the lowermost nail in the column rests on this shoulder. When the member 54 is then rotated a few degrees toward theleft (Figure 4), the nose 62 enters between the shank of the lowermost nail and the shank of the nail next above and takes the support of the nail column. At the same time, the lower portion 58 of the bayonet slot moves into alignment with the slot 52 and the shoulder 64 moves out from under the shank of the lowermost nail, permitting this nail to fall downward below the lower end of the slot 52. Since the slot 58 is wider than the diameter of the nail head, the nail then falls clear of the member 54 and is discharged by gravity through the opening 14 into the inner cylinder 12 and down into the reduced bore 16.

When the shoe 30 is placed against the edge of a board on the floor, the barrel 10 is usually in the retracted position shown in Figure 1. It is then pushed down by the operator along the inner cylinder 12 to the position shown in Figure 5. Opposing this downward movement of the barrel on the inner cylinder is a helical spring 66 the lower end of which engages against the upper end of the inner cylinder, the upper end of the spring engaging against the tubular plug 18. This spring is helical and surrounds the driving rod 20, being located in the clearance between the driving rod and the upper portion of the barrel 10. When the barrel is pushed down to the position shown in Figure 5, the driving rod 20 is held in its retracted position relative to the sleeve 12 by a spring pressed ball 66 which engages below a circumferential shoulder 70 on the driving rod 20. This causes the upper end of the driving rod to project out from the plug 18 as shown in Figure 5. The relative movement of the barrel on the inner cylinder 12 results in the actuation of the nail picking, device which releases a nail from the raceway to allow it to fall into the bore 16. The nail is thus placed in line with the driving rod and is ready to be driven. One or more blows with a hammer against the head 22 of the driving rod will drive the nail properly through the board 40 and will set the nail so that its head is entirely within the contour of the board. For the actuation of the nail picking device, the inner cylinder 2 is provided at its upper end with a cam block 72 having a diagonal face 74 at its upper end to form a Wedge cam adapted to engage a crank pin 76 on a crank 78 which is secured to the lower end of the picker member 54. When the barrel 10 is pushed down on the inner cylinder 12, the wedge cam 74 pushes the crank pin 76 aside and thus rocks the crank 78 so as to turn the member 54 through the necessary angle about its axis. This rocking movement is against the restoring force supplied by a helical spring 80 which is compressed between a bracket 82 on the upper side wall of the block 48 and an arm 84 of a bell crank 86 (Figure 2). The other arm 88 of the bell crank engages a radial pin 90 which extends from the picker member 54 through a slot 92 in the side of the block 48. Thus when the barrel is retracted along the inner cylinder 12 by or with the aid of the spring 66 to the position shown in Figure 1, the wedge cam 74 moves out of contact with the crank pin 76 and the picker member 54 is turned back to its original position by the spring 80.

For conveniently handling the mechanism and for pushing the barrel 10 downward as heretofore described, a housing member 94 is mounted on the barrel 10 and projects upward therefrom around the picker device and raceway 50. The housing member is preferably made of sheet metal suitably shaped for the purpose and includes a handle portion 96 which can be conveniently grasped. Within the housing and integral therewith is a nail guide consisting of two parallel plates 98 spaced apart by a distance substantially equalto the slot 52. These plates are connected together at their forward edges as at 100 and have rear edge portions abutting the raceway 50 along its lower portion on either side of the slot '52 so that as the nails in the raceway descend with the shanks extending out through the slot 52 they enter the narrow clear ance between the plates 98 and are held in a common 7 plane so that the points are directed toward the axis of the inner cylinder 12. The plates 98 are joined along their bottom edges as at 102 and are bulged outward as at 104 just above the joint to form a tubular passage large enough to accommodate the heads of the nail-s so that when a nail is discharged from the picker device, it falls into this passage and slides downward and forward therein to an opening 106 cut in the bottom of the passage. This opening is directly above the opening 14 in the inner cylinder 12 when the barrel has been pushed down, as in Figure 5, to release a nail. Hence the nail is guided into the bore 16. The nail guide comprising plates 98 is preferably made of sheet metal and is permanently secured to the housing member 94 as by welding so that when the housing is removed from the barrel for access to the picking device, the nail guide is also removed with the housing as a unit.

In order to permit the mechanism to stand tip-right when placed on a floor, two legs 111 may be cast on the lower side of the barrel 10 to rest on the floor when the mechanism is not in use.

I claim:

1. In a nail feeding and driving mechanism having an inner cylinder, a barrel slidably telescoping on said inner cylinder, a hollow block projecting from said barrel at right angles to the axis thereof, and a raceway with a longitudinal slot secured to said block; a device for feed ing nails one by one into said inner cylinder, said de vice including a cylindrical member rotatably mounted in said block in line with said raceway, said member having a bayonet slot movable into and out of registry with the slot in said raceway, and means for oscillating said member, said means including a crank and pin, and a wedge cam carried by said inner cylinder to engage said pin when the barrel and inner cylinder telescope.

2. Mechanism as described in claim 1, said means for oscillating thenail-picking member including a radial pin projecting from said member, a bell crank rockably mountedon' said block with one arm thereof bearing against said pin, and a compressed helical spring carried by said block with one end of the spring pressing against the other arm of said bell crank in a direction to press the first mentioned arm of the bell crank against said pin,

3. In a nail feeding and driving mechanism having a barrel, a nail-picking device carried by said barrel, a slotted raceway for nails extending up from said picking device, and a housing attached to said barrel and surrounding said picking device; a guiding member for nails within and permanently secured to said housing, said guiding member comprising two parallel plates with edge portions abutting said raceway along the sides of the slot therein, the lower margins of said plates being joined to form a tubular channel with a diameter greater than the distance between said plates, the bottom of said channel being cut away for a portion of its length to facilitate the discharge of nails passing therethrough.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 403,843 Junkins May 21, 1889 1,052,978 Simpler Feb. ll, 1913 1,146,105 Sabelman July 13, 1915 1,341,821 Perri June 1, 1920 

